“Let’s take to the tunnel where we came in!” cried Ned. “Perhaps they are hiding there.”
“If they are, they are well armed, and their force is three times what ours is now,” said the professor. “If we are to help Bob we will have to do it by strategy rather than by force. Come, we had better go back to the temple. We can make our plans from there.”
“Poor Chunky!” groaned Jerry. “I wonder what they are doing to him now?”
“I guess it was his money-belt they wanted more than they did him,” put in Ned. “You know he carried what was left of the five hundred dollars.”
“That’s so!” exclaimed Jerry, with a rueful face.
“Never mind the money; I have plenty,” put in the naturalist. “And don’t worry; we’ll find Bob yet.”
Nothing could be done that night, so the professor and the two boys tried to get what sleep their troubled minds would allow. In the morning they made a hurried breakfast and then held a consultation. It was decided to explore the tunnel by which they had entered the city, and see if it still held the brigands and Noddy’s crowd.
Arming themselves, the professor, Ned and Jerry advanced carefully through the big wooden gate. They proceeded cautiously, but no one opposed them. The tunnel was deserted. They came to the hole where they had tumbled down. The inclined plane of planks was there, in the same position as when the cave-in, produced by Murado, had occurred.
“They have probably gone back up here and are running across country,” remarked Ned. “Hello!” he exclaimed. “What’s that?”